Getting Traction

For the person trying to get the programme started in their organisation. The manager or commissioner who decides needs only the Briefing for Decision-Makers.

Most managers aren’t against better teaching. They are short of time and judged on other things. Your job is not to persuade them that education matters. It’s to connect this programme to a problem they already own.

Start with their problem

Open with a question about something they’re already accountable for: are we getting the result we want from the way we teach this now?

Problems that often sit behind that question:

• training that has to be repeated because the first run didn’t stick
• the same competency gaps coming back after several sessions on the same topic
• new starters who pass induction but struggle to do it on their own
• commitments made at a development day that nobody followed up
• attendance lists, photos and feedback forms reported as success, with no one able to say what changed

The last two are the programme’s own spine: start with the change, not the event. Before You Plan a Teaching Day puts it as six questions you can share.

Say it in their language

Instead of…	Try…
”There’s no active learning"	"People sit and listen, so they don’t practise the thing we need them to do"
"We need spaced retrieval"	"One session won’t survive the next busy shift"
"The cognitive load is too high"	"The slides are trying to do too much, so people can’t take it in"
"The outcomes aren’t aligned"	"We can’t say what people should be able to do afterwards, so we can’t tell if it worked”

Keep it about the system, not the person. Most clinicians who teach were never taught how to. That’s a gap in provision, not a personal failing.

Find your first cohort

Every organisation has people already asking these questions: the educator frustrated by slide-heavy teaching, the ward leader puzzled by recurring gaps, the practitioner who would like to teach but hasn’t yet. Start with them. You don’t need a formal mandate to talk to people who are already interested.

Be honest about what that does to your results. Volunteers and enthusiasts are more likely to report change, so a first cohort may flatter the programme. Say so when you report, and widen the next cohort.

Make the first run visible

Agree the 30- and 90-day checks before Session 1 (the Evaluation Toolkit has them). Then share something concrete: a before-and-after slide, a redesigned session, what participants say they changed and what got in the way.

One local example does more than any argument. It also makes the second cohort an easier ask.

If you might move on, hand the follow-up and the next cohort to a named colleague early. Programmes that depend on one enthusiast tend to stop when that person leaves.

Next steps

• Briefing for Decision-Makers: one page for whoever approves the time.
• Task and Finish: Programme Setup: the planning checklist once you have a yes.